MORE THAN HALF OF SCOTS WANT LOCKERBIE PROBE
MORE than half of Scots believe a Public Inquiry should be held into the Lockerbie bombing, according to an exclusive poll for the Scottish Sunday Express.
Our figures also reveal that most people do not believe Abdelbaset Ali Mohmed Al-Megrahi was guilty of Britain’s worst terror attack, despite being convicted by a Scottish court.
For the first time, a majority of Scots also back Justice Secretary Kenny MacAskill’s controversial decision to send Megrahi home to Tripoli to die from terminal prostate cancer.
This reverses the findings of most previous polls and comes after new television footage last week showed the Libyan looking frail and close to death.
Dr Jim Swire, whose daughter Flora was among the 270 victims of the 1988 bombing, said yesterday: “This is hugely encouraging. We have the right to know who really murdered our loved one.”
The poll of 500 people, carried out on Thursday and Friday, also found that 35 per cent do not believe Megrahi was guilty, while 32 per cent believe he was and 33 per cent do not know.
The 59-year-old father of five has always protested his innocence and abandoned a second appeal against his conviction just days before his release on health grounds in August 2009.
He was given leave to appeal after the Scottish Criminal Cases Review Commission ruled in 2007 that he may have been the victim a miscarriage of justice.
In a major boost for the Scottish Government, the poll also reveals that 51 per cent of Scots agreed with the decision to free Megrahi on compassionate grounds, with 49 per cent still opposed.
This is a significant increase on the 42 per cent who agreed with Mr MacAskill in 2009 and the 34 per cent who agreed before the dying Libyan’s latest television appearance.
A Scottish Government spokesman said last night: “Whether people support or oppose the decision, it was made following the due process of Scots Law, we stand by it, and Megrahi is dying of terminal prostate cancer.”
However, it is the widespread backing for a Public Inquiry – the first time that public opinion has ever been tested on this issue – that is likely to have the most political impact.
The Holyrood Justice Committee is due to consider a petition calling for a probe, backed by figures such as Archbishop Desmond Tutu, former MP Tam Dalyell and Cardinal Keith O’Brien.
Dr Swire, one of the architects of the petition, said: “This is hugely interesting, valuable and encouraging. It is terrific that the message is getting out there.
“The Public Inquiry is not for the relatives of those that died, it is for the people of Scotland. They deserve and badly need to be told what has been going on.
“Namely, that their justice system has been made use of by another country – mostly America, although Westminster was conniving away on Washington’s behalf – for politically desired ends, turning the spotlight away from Iran and Syria ahead of the Gulf War.”
Professor Robert Black, who designed the unique Lockerbie trial under Scots Law at Camp Zeist in Holland and has protested Megrahi’s innocence ever since, said he was “delighted” by the support for an inquiry.
“This is the first such poll that I am aware of,” he said. “It certainly helps our campaign as there must come a point where the disquiet about the conviction becomes so great that they can’t go on stonewalling.”
The Justice For Megrahi campaign secretary Robert Forrester said the poll could help sway the Justice Committee – which is chaired by MSP Christine Grahame, a long-standing supporter of Megrahi’s innocence.
He said: “We are up against the Scottish Government and the Lord Advocate and it takes such a long time to go even a short distance, so it is very refreshing to see the Scottish public is on our side.”
Despite the poll findings, a Scottish Government spokesman said they stood by Megrahi’s conviction and had no intention of setting a Public Inquiry.
He added: “We do not doubt Megrahi’s guilt. Scotland’s justice system has been dealing with the Lockerbie atrocity for nearly 23 years, and in every regard the due process of Scots Law has been followed – in terms of the investigation, prosecution, imprisonment, rejection of the prisoner transfer application and granting of compassionate release.
“Given the international dimensions of the Lockerbie atrocity, we always said any inquiry would be beyond the remit of the Scottish Parliament and Government and would have to be international in nature.”
By Ben Borland
4 September 2011
@express.co.uk